Bat Ye’or’s Foreword to “The Mufti’s Islamic Jew-Hatred”

The issue of anti-Jewish incitement and indoctrination in Islamic theology and jurisprudence was examined, unfettered, in seminal academic publications by Western scholars during the end of the 19th century, through the early to mid-20th century. However, with rare exceptions, since the 1970s, if not somewhat earlier, an ever increasing censorship from major Western European, American, and Israeli academic institutions has managed to obfuscate this subject. Concomitantly, an obsessive self-flagellating Western public opinion has emerged, forged by well-funded “anti-racist” state networks in UN organizations, international policy groups, and the media. Denouncing racist bigotry exclusively in Europe, America and above all, Israel, these utopians aggressively promoted immigration and globalization as the only antidote to Judeo-Christian racism.

Yet the texts published herein present another picture, truer and less partial. Along with other doctrinal Islamic writings in the same vein concerning Christians, often referred to as mushrikun (polytheists associating a partner to Allah), Buddhists, Hindus and others, they were intentionally concealed. Bringing these texts to public awareness allegedly undermined efforts designed to promote a harmonious “global society.” Among other questions raised by Dr. Bostom’s essay, one wonders about the connections between deliberately tailored scholarship, and the pursuit of delusive policies.

But there is more to ponder on this issue. The canonical Islamic texts herein establish the theological and legal jurisdiction for over a billion Muslims spread over the planet. Most were written between the 9th and12th centuries in specific political and social contexts when illiteracy and superstition were commonplace. Nearly all of these texts record the acts and sayings of a prophet who lived at least two centuries before the authors compiled them, and whom none of the compilers ever met. These testimonies tell us about facts that no other contemporary record mentions. Moreover, it is this compendium of materials that is ruling the activities of Muslim communities in the 56 countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and will determine the contemporary fate of the world’s billions of people, even those who ignore their existence and their meaning. This situation highlights the West’s failure—rejecting the application of objective, critical thought in the area of Islamic studies, which was encouraged, appropriately, for other theological systems with similar prejudices and superstitions.

Many reasons could have motivated this obstruction, but one is alluded on page 49 (note 52), which includes an extract from an October, 1957 US intelligence report on Johan von Leers. After World War II, von Leers, a leading Nazi, took refuge in Egypt where he converted to Islam. With his friend Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who had actively collaborated with Hitler, representing the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood branch, von Leers advocated “an expansion of Islam in Europe to bring about stronger unity through a common religion.” From the 1960s, throughout the following decades, this policy was unofficially promoted in Europe where former Nazis and collaborationist officials kept important functions as ministers, diplomats and civil servants. The situation was similar throughout Western Europe where former fascists and collaborationists held the same functions in governments or in international organizations, the UN, the European Community, Interpol and so on. For instance Walter Hallstein, officer of the Wehrmacht and Nazi jurist became architect of the European Community and first president of the European Commission (1958- 1967).

This New Europe of Hitler, von Leers and Hajj Amin el-Husseini has taken shape under our own eyes. It has reinforced hatred of the Jews through the Euro-Arab religion of “Palestinianism,” and seeks the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel.